Tuesday, March 28, 2017

First what is a Modified Democracy and how does it work. The
United States of American has a governmental model called a Modified Democracy.
This means that we have a capitalist system that is modified with socialist elements. We have a social safety net for the poor, the disabled, and the elderly. This safety net has allow the growth of a healthy middle class since they do not have to bear the cost of supporting those individuals. Over hundreds
of years we have found that our system works like a pendulum. It will swing to the far
right and then to the far left. Presently it has swung to the far right. We know that the top 1% of individuals are
making all the money and that the other 99% are finding it hard to get ahead at
present. We had hoped that with a Democrat in the Oval office and control of
both the house and the senate that things would begin to swing back toward the
left. Over the past eight years that has not been the case because republicans have
been blocking change and gaming the system to their own advantage.

Now the far left is being led by a group of Bernie Sanders supporters who
express a desire to move the pendulum back to the far left all at once. They
are angry and demanding change now with no regard for how the system works.
Their view is violent revolution. They
have made it clear that they don’t play by the rules and if you get in their
way they will harm you physically. What do they want? They want free health
care, free college education, huge increases in wages, jobs, harsh rules to
protect the environment that are known to kill small businesses. How do they want to pay
for it? They want to force the rich to give up all of their belongings and hand
everything to the poor. The rich are fighting this and will leave the country
with their money if pushed too far.

How do I break this to them? The government is controlled by the far right at
present. You can scream all you want, stomp your feet, call foul and demand the
changes all you want and nothing will change until the Oval office, Senate and
the House are controlled by the Democrats. Even then it will be difficult to
make changes because the republicans are masters at blocking any change in
government. If you threaten them with violence they will use it to gain more
control.

Now the far right is being led by President Trump and the
republicans. They want a system that is pure capitalism in its most basic form.
No government rules to control businesses when it comes to consumer protection
or the environment. No minimum wage so that companies can pay slave wages and
make employees work past the 40 hour work week without any benefits whatsoever as to result in huge profits for the top 1%.
They want the government to protect them for other countries when it comes to
trade. They want to be able to refuse healthcare coverage. If anyone gets sick
it is god’s will that they be homeless and poor. They want to pay veterans
slave wages and if you are too weak to care for yourself after you come home
from war well that is your fault.

How do I break this to them? The democrats will block these efforts as much as
they can. The democrats are well educated and understand the consequences of
long term damage to our environment and veterans of this country. They also
understand that if you turn your back on the rest of the world that bad things
will come knocking at our front door. If you think terrorism is bad now just imagine
what the world will be like if other countries and their people have nowhere to
turn. War and torture will only create armies of terrorists. The democrats also understand that if you turn
you back on the poor and working class by destroying the social safety net that you may be able to fool them for a
short period but they will turn on the Republican Party for the lie of a great
America once more. What made America Great was a healthy middle class. These people are armed and will hurt the republicans once
they find out just how much they have been played as fools.

You cannot bully your way into either the far left or the
far rights idea of the perfect world. Balance is when no one is all powerful.
Lunch and resources have never been free and someone always has to pay the
piper for the cost of anything. The best we can hope for is a balance that
harms no one to the extent that they become angry enough to rise up and attack
their own fellow Americans.

Monday, March 27, 2017

Too often now I am hearing that unless you are a member of
the extreme party that will not speak to the other side or work with them that
you should not be elected to office of any kind. No compromise! It is either my
way or the highway even if the wording of a bill or resolution could inadvertently
do harm to voters. They point out in war that collateral damage is the price we
pay for getting what they want. They don’t care about what is good for the
voters but only what they value as good for their own group.

Our younger voters and yes even some older ones don’t want to listen. They in
fact refuse to listen. They don’t want to work with people they consider the enemy.
They don’t want to learn political history. They don’t care about the past
because they simply don’t care if they repeat past mistakes. They will use the
current rules to their own advantage but howl to high heaven if they don’t get
their way even if those same rules apply to them. I don’t think they have even
bothered to read the current rules. Rules that have been argued over, refined
time and time again. Where the different between shall and may was debated for
months if not years.

The Democratic Party as a whole has a long drawn out process
for creating a party platform which states common core values for the party.
It addresses the voter’s views on current issues and hopes for the future. The process starts at the Ward level where
people put forward their ideas in a legal format called a resolution. Then it
is reviewed by a committee so as to fix any flaws in wording and to combine it
with the past platform and other Wards resolutions that address the same
subject. It is then voted on at the county level. Then it moves to the state
level where again it is combined with resolutions from all over the state and
the state level platform. At this point it is moved to the national level where
resolutions are combined with the national platform and resolutions from other
states to develop a living document that puts forth the values and desires from
people all over our country. An idea at the local level can see many changes
before it reaches the national level. This angers the new Democrats. But it is
how government and organizations that are representative of a large number of
individuals works.

In government people
are elected at local, state, and federal levels. Our government is divided into
three independent branches that balance each other out. This does not give complete
control to any one individual. Each of those three branches are answerable to
the voting public. Two of the branches are directly elected by the voters and
the third is appointed and approved by elected individuals. In short “we
the people” control our government as a majority. No one person or
group may take control without a majority of the people handing it to them.

Our government is designed to force people of different
viewpoints to work together in order to enact change in the current
incarnation of our government. The reason that not much
change has occurred as of late is because the different branches of government
are refusing to work together for the betterment of the people they represent.
My way or the highway does not work in our form of government. We must allow
our elected officials to work with each other if anything good is to come from
it. Now that does not mean giving one side everything they want but it does
require that they listen and explain in a reasonable clear fashion their views
and why they hold those views. It does require not alternate facts but real
provable facts that can be studied, deliberated on and debated so as to enact
actions and laws that will result in the best overall outcome for this country.
At no time in this country’s history has
every voter agreed with any one law or action taken by the government nor
should that be the case today.

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Quotes:

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die."

The O'Coilean (O'Collins)

'A great host with whom it is not fortunate to contend, the battle-trooped host of the O'Coileain."Abraham Lincoln

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."From NPR Radio"Rosa sat so Martin could walk.Martin walked so Obama could run.Obama ran so our children can fly!"

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new."Unknown"Friendship is loving someone no matter what is in their past. It is accepting the fact that they are human and that they have made their share of mistakes over a life time. Trust is being able to tell your friend the most private secret knowing that they will not judge you. A life is not lived well without that one true and trusted friendship."Mary Harris "Mother" Jones

"My job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable"

Albert Einstein

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."Will Rogers"I don't belong to an organized party--I'm a democrat."President John F. Kennedy, Democrat“If by a ‘liberal’ they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people—their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties—someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a ‘Liberal,’ then I’m proud to say I’m a ‘Liberal.’”Martin Luther King Jr.

"Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase."

Lora O'Brien

"All I can do is share one person's experiences on her own path, not tell you how to walk yours. If a guru is what you are looking for, find another! If I am a teacher, it is because I am already walking the path that you, Dear Reader, may wish to be on. Although each of us must make our own way, I can put up signs at least, and make the way slightly less hazardous for those who wish to walk a similar path."

C. S. Lewis

"Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives."

A Female Democrat

1/1/10 A new year and a number of future elections to cover. The budget will be a major issue this year and we must work hard to protect the core values of our party.